With advancements in genetics, biomedical engineering, dermatology, life sciences, oncology and many other fields of study, treatments for cancer, and particularly skin cancer, is still limited. Research into the causes, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of skin cancer is being done and, especially for patients in the later stages of skin cancer, clinical trials are a boon, to find that one drug or vaccine, or a combination of therapies that would alleviate the symptoms or side effects of the skin cancer treatment procedures.

Any new drug, to be approved by the FDA in the United States, has to be first tested through clinical trials, where voluntary participants are closely monitored upon the administration of new drugs or treatment methods.

There are a few advantages that volunteers participating in skin cancer clinical trials should consider.

• They are administered brand new medicines that are not yet made available commonly. In case these are more effective, participants of skin cancer clinical trials benefit from the treatment earlier because they take the risk of taking part in these.

Clinical trials for skin cancer are done on patients in stages III or IV of the disease, so although the risks with new treatments are considerably high, the choice is really between dealing with the life-threatening skin cancer disease or experimenting with the most recent treatments for it.